


the umbrella academy meta

by merrymelody



Category: Misfits (TV 2009), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18338876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymelody/pseuds/merrymelody
Summary: So, I like writing meta, but it’s too long for Tumblr and LJ’s dead, hence: 5k on Umbrella Academy, discussing opinions of each character in S1.





	the umbrella academy meta

**Luther**

Torn. I don’t dislike him as much as some, but I feel like the show seemed to assume a default sympathy for him that didn’t really get backed up by the writing. 

Of all the powers, he has the most traditional – physical strength, but I think there really wasn’t much exploration of his self-loathing or dysphoria.  
It’d be interesting to see a female Luther, tbh, as that would be more of a conflict between the idealised female body. As it is, it’s sad and telling that his and Alison’s daydream is of him in a normal body, and I like the scene where he’s emphasising with how she’ll feel when she awakens, physically altered; but Luther’s strength as an overall is presented as an aid to him in enforcing his will in the more expected masculine ways, both positive (protecting the others, like the chandelier scene) and negative (dominating the others with his might.)   
The only interaction we see of him in normal society is actually fairly accepting – he’s literally fetishized as attractive and the object of envy, and it seems presented as a positive step for Luther to join ‘the real world’ – his confession is played comically ‘(drugs) were amazing, actually’, his virginity is presented as a reason why he’s emotionally immature, Alison’s reaction is suggested to be jealousy based rather than concern… 

Tonally, however, Luther seems to be in a different show, which perhaps explains some of the negative reactions towards him. This is an issue for Alison also, but she benefits from a dynamism – she’s investigating Leonard, so her plot is relevant to the overall show and moves swiftly. Luther’s concerns are inevitably smaller when you compare them to bereavements, murder investigations, and the apocalypse. 

Luther’s also a character who benefits in text from a privileging of his point of view. His (comparative) closeness to Reginald (despite the audience recognising this isn’t much of a positive, considering Reginald’s abuse of all the children) and position as ‘Number One’ seems to be what carries his will when there’s disagreement, and Diego and Klaus in particular cave to him because of this role (‘you’re our Number One, oh captain, my captain’, ‘you’re number one, but you need to get us on the same page,’) even when they can recognise the flaws of his stance. Alison is presented as the most level-headed of the siblings, and she generally supports him until the penultimate episode (‘I’m with Luther.’ ‘Big surprise.’)   
Ben (who as a character is pretty flat, and generally gives us exposition and support to Klaus) seems the furthest of the siblings from echoing Reginald’s behaviour and beliefs. Ben’s few comments on his siblings other than Klaus are shock at Vanya’s book and the impassioned defence of Luther in 1.7, in which we’re told Luther is in danger in ‘the real world’ and that he would ‘do anything to save’ Klaus. 

This highlights the issues with Luther’s characterisation. He’s almost infantilised - why is an evening of drinking and substance abuse something he’s ‘not ready’ for? I mean, it’s obviously not an ideal way to deal with his trauma, but again, tonally, this is such a huge leap from jokes about Klaus ‘lov(ing) needles’ or not recalling his virginity loss; or even Five’s drinking, which tbh is probably far risker to a 13 year old metabolism as opposed to Luther’s. I’ve seen suggestions maybe Ben’s death was linked to drugs in some way, which I could buy; but since it’s still a theory for now, we’re left with this suggestion that Luther needs to preserved from foolish-but-probably-not-harmful actions in a way that the others aren’t.

As for the part about how he would do anything to rescue Klaus, or presumably, any of his siblings, we’re told this – the promotional material even has him carrying Klaus – but generally, Luther’s the last to take the caretaker role.   
We see Vanya caring for Five, Diego and Ben caring for Klaus, Alison caring for Vanya, and Klaus caring for Luther, but generally, Luther’s dynamic is as the cared for – even his moments with Alison are her preparing surprises for him.   
His interactions with family are comparatively limited and the most positive is with Alison, which is obviously complicated by the romantic dimension to their relationship; and he has the most combative relationships with the others.   
It’s also unfortunate that while it may not be purposeful, the scenes in which Luther is more evenly matched with his siblings are those in which he’s witnessed by the others – his fights with Diego are seen by the whole family, Pogo, and Five respectively; whereas his choking of Klaus and then Vanya, both of whom are at an emotional and physical disadvantage, are done when they’re alone with Luther, which makes him seem even more of a bully.

The thing is, there’s so much potential for Luther, as someone remaking themselves in their abusers image in order to justify the purpose of his suffering and believe that their father cared; but also just a guy who’s goofy and caring and not that bright. 

The scene with Vanya where she arrives at the house is really powerful, because none of the things Luther says (‘Of course you can stay. This is your home’) are beyond his potential to be capable of, he’s not a naturally spiteful person, it seems, and Tom Hopper does a great job with the variety of aspects to Luther’s character, whether they be comical or emotional. It’s just not clear how much of Luther is told versus how much is shown. 

The strongest scene of his was, I think, his interactions with Five, with the conflict between Luther’s naïve idealism versus Five’s cynicism and utilitarianism; and I’d love to see more of Luther’s individual relationships with his siblings beyond the predictable (his and Diego’s pissing contests, will-they won’t-they with Alison.) 

**Diego**

I liked. I was worried that I wouldn’t because I feel like he has potential to again, be perhaps a character we’ve seen too many times before and it’d all be tantrums about who’s the most macho from him and Luther, but he was actually maybe one of the most interesting characters to me, in part because he’s the most obviously flawed. 

Like, the worst thing for a character for me is one where you feel the writer has a specific reaction (usually positive) that they want you to have, and all reactions to that character are predicated on that. (I really struggle with the Harry Potter series for this, it feels like the narrative voice is an ever present defence lawyer for the characters Rowling wants you to like.) With Diego, they’re not afraid to make him flawed, and ironically, it made me like him most. If you made him the cool leather clad badass guy, it would just be totally flat, but it’s more interesting, he’s basically performing that role all the time (‘cute ass, great legs’, ugh) when both his worst and better instincts don’t really fit that mould. 

It’s neat how, rather than having it be one of the female characters who are the ‘bitch’, it’s Diego. And his ego is so sensitive, he has no sense of proportion at all, like, whipping out that ‘LOLOLOL ur marriage failed’ after the most minor provocation. People have said maybe Vanya’s book was really harsh about the siblings, and idk, maybe so, but I think Diego is definitely one who’d hold a grudge even if it had been nothing worse than what we hear on screen, he’s very devoted to defining himself by these traditional codes of honour.   
His argument with Luther about the latter’s emotionally maturity also had shades of Alison’s with Vanya, like they’re feeling low so they need something comparatively small to compare themselves with their sibling and feel superior (‘I may live in a gym, but at least I’ve been to third base with a girl!’ vs. ‘I may have ruined my marriage and damaged the relationship with my child irreparably, but at least I had those things!’) it’s one of the realest sibling moments for me, particularly since they’re all the same age and yet at disparate life stages.

And yet, Diego’s strongest moments are the ones where he leans into the more nurturing side of his nature, which is so at odds with the Batman wish fulfilment. The fact that in the day that wasn’t, he comes the closest to discovering relevant information, not through being the strongest or sacrificing the most (I did love that for Luther and Alison, the happiest ending was to opt out entirely from Reginald’s obligations) but through just recognising that Reginald’s treatment was wrong (‘I should have done something, we all should have’) and validating his mom’s wishes. 

Similarly, his relationship with Klaus is fascinating, like, of course he can get on with him, Klaus purposefully exempts himself from the macho issues that Luther and Diego clash over, and he allows Diego to feel superior, unlike Alison and Five; but also, Diego, like Klaus, is one of the few characters we see both receive nurture (in his case, from Grace) and offer it forward.   
Like Klaus, Diego isn’t the powerhouse of the family in terms of intellect (fingerprints! Raw eggs! Jumping through windows!) but they share an emotional literacy. Diego’s the only one to not just notice but actively reach out towards Klaus (we even get the contrast of Klaus’ scene with Five, who recognises all the details – new tattoo, dog tags, physical symptoms – but through his own arrested development and trauma is incapable of emphasising on an emotional level.)

The fridging of Patch was not a good look, and frankly, the Cha Cha subplot, while great in theory, lacks in execution (the fact that everything is incessantly spelled out is something I hope fades out if there’s a S2, like, have faith in your audience, if you’ve mentioned Patch or Dave or whoever, you don’t need to then show a flashback, and then literally explain: ‘Honouring a memory.’) – like, is this really the hill to die on? Killing bank robbers etc. goes unquestioned, but let’s allow Hazel and Cha Cha the serial murderers to escape. 

Performance wise, unlike Sheehan, Hopper and Page, I’ve never seen David Casteneda’s work, but he has this fascinating way of delivering lines that I really enjoyed, like some of the cast had a more naturalistic acting style, whereas his was more theatrical in a way that really fits the character. (I love the ‘She was taking the monocle…to clean it,’ and ‘A bitter old man…just. like. he. deserved.’) 

**Alison**

…Here’s where I feel like the writing falls into the lazier tropes. I loved Emmy Raver Lampman’s performance (particularly impressive since she's silent for the 1/5th of the show!); and that the focus on Alison’s relationship with her sister as opposed to relying on the old ‘the girls compete for male attention’. 

I also think it’s interesting to have one of the siblings be a parent.

The 30s in general I think are a really fascinating age to explore in an ensemble show, as opposed to the usual late-teens, early twenties. Life experience in teens is generally on a similar kind of track, unusual events notwithstanding, but your thirties are when you really feel the pressure of society to have your life not only decided on a set course, but when there starts a divide between choices. 

The clashes between Vanya/Alison and Diego/Luther on these are great - with Klaus, Five and Ben’s arrested development removing them from it - and it’s a choice to also have the sole parent be one of the only two daughters of the house.   
The luxury of having a female character completely reject adulthood in the way that male ones do is very rare – a female Klaus, for example, would not be viewed with the sympathy a male one receives, from either creator or audience, I think.   
Ben as a woman would, I think, be viewed as shrewish, and Five as a girl would be your classic Leon/Hit Girl jailbait fodder.   
Rejecting the pursuit of romantic relationships - and implicitly, children within these - is viewed as a life-limiting choice in a way that a man doing so isn’t (it’s fairly predictable that Vanya’s shown to deal with her sister’s criticism by engaging in what she believes to be a committed relationship; while Luther’s praised for the act of having sex without emotional intimacy) and conversely, taking on a parental role is suggested to validate female characters in a way that doesn’t apply to male characters. 

It’s also predictable that Alison seems to be solely responsible for maintaining links to Vanya while her brothers delegate emotional labour entirely onto her (the plots divide as pretty gender segregated, with little interaction between Alison and Vanya with their brothers), as well as it being Alison who has the less dramatic role (her plotline is literally resolved prior to the events of the pilot episode) and who has the most restrictions on the use of her power, as well as being literally silenced. (I’ll touch later on parallels and differences between TUA and Misfits, particularly as producer Steve Blackman is apparently a fan of the latter, but there’s a similar arc for the character of Alisha on that, who has a manipulation power rarely used on screen, and who’s throat is also slit.) 

I’m not necessarily unhappy with any individual aspects of the character (god knows there were enough moments where the characters were contrivedly ignoring each other even when it made no sense to, so it was a drink of cool water to have one so actively try to communicate at all) so much as taken all together, they seems to be fairly common to tropes writers fall into – of course it’s the woman who has a power that manipulates others (same as Vanya’s power being uncontrollable emotion), of course it’s the woman who can’t use her power for Reasons (particularly when you contrast this with male characters, like Klaus – it’s the common arc that a male character needs to learn to increase his powers while female ones should or choose to suppress theirs), and of course it’s the woman who’s onscreen arc doesn’t really delve into her individual flaws so much as being the one who cares for the others and moves the plot forward. 

Really, Alison’s power seems to be an example of something too ‘big’ for the plot, and provokes the same questions as the appearance of Quicksilver in X-Men – why can’t this power resolve everything? Why can’t Alison use her power in order to have Hargreeves love the siblings, or to fix Klaus’ addictions or visions, or return Five or Ben to their family, or to hear a rumour that there is no apocalypse? What are its limitations? If anything, I’d see her and Five as easily the most powerful. She suggests at one point she was able to get ‘everything she wanted’ from everyone, including ‘Dad’ – did her power work on him, or was he merely fostering it as a potential tool for controlling the others? What does she want, aside from her daughter’s return? She apparently desired attention enough to pursue celebrity, but her characterisation isn’t really consistent with performance or narcissism. 

I do like how Alison, despite seeming the most successful, is like her siblings, is stuck in some ways re-enacting their childhood. None of them can really reject their upbringing entirely, because the abuse of that upbringing reset their parameters for what’s acceptable.   
Luther by the end replaces Reginald out of desperation to prove all his suffering was in the service of a greater good.   
Diego recognises Reginald’s abuse but is still compelled to repeat their younger years as a childish fantasy of good vs evil.   
Klaus defines himself in Reginald’s view (weak and incapable) and it takes Reginald’s suggestion for him to wonder about his potential.   
Five’s hyper-focused on the end results over the means, and like Reginald, is capable of viewing the loss of individuals as acceptable in the face of a larger goal.   
And Alison used her power to control her loved ones, as Reginald controlled her and her siblings. 

As for the Luther/Alison pairing, the moral objections don’t interest me as much as the mechanics of it, which were surprisingly dull. We don’t really get much on what they see in each other (their big scene is dialogue-less) and while you could assume that the upbringing all the children endured may have pushed them together, the fact that they and their siblings seem to view the relationship as fairly normal and expected means it’s harder to apply psychological realism to it. 

For the future, I’d love more sibling interactions, Vanya/Alison were great; she and Diego seemed to have an interesting dynamic of sparring going on; apparently she and Klaus were close as children, and the scene where Five says he’d like to meet Claire is lovely. 

**Klaus**

Klaus, like Diego, is interesting not just on his own merits, but also as a male character, which I think is probably something developed from casting – this isn’t Robert Sheehan’s first queer role, or role playing with aspects of masculinity. Even his more generic films tend to have some kind of challenge to the norm (Mortal Engines casts his character, Tom, as the ingenue in need of rescue, aided by Hela Helmar’s jaded survivor. Bad Samaritan uses a similar scene to Umbrella Academy, the horror movie classic in which of the lead - usually the final girl, in this case a man – showers or bathes, naked and vulnerable, unaware of the villain approaching behind him.)

Like Diego, Klaus’ strengths and weaknesses are also those which tend to be traditionally associated with women.   
Klaus, despite spending his childhood as a soldier of sorts, and 10 months in Vietnam, is continuously separated from fighting and warfare. His power is not one of physical strength like his brothers, but possession, long associated with femininity.   
His personality is also not only empathic (he’s the first to comfort Luther when Alison is hurt, and he’s horror struck seeing Vanya confined) but reactive (everything Klaus is told to do, he attempts swiftly, from summoning their father on Luther’s request, to locating their father’s diaries on Pogo’s. When he refuses an order, it’s at Diego’s desire to face down Hazel and Cha Cha, and it saves Diego’s life) and forgiving (you could draw an interesting comparison between his and Alison’s immediate forgiveness of violent physical attacks from their siblings.)   
Part of this is his reliance on other people (for cash, access to the house, rides) – he needs to stay the most amenable because he’s already on thin ice with the family, and if they’re charmed by him (like Alison laughing at his jokes, or Diego dropping him off), they’re not preventing him from indulging in his habits; but I think part of it is shaped by his power – if you’re surrounded by ghosts showcasing the effects of a violent death all your life, ‘breaking bones and cracking skulls’ and throwing bank robbers out of windows becomes a lot less tempting. 

If anything, Klaus is a character I feel they could have pushed as darker and more manipulative in his initial few episodes – I wonder if Luther and Klaus were originally predicted to have comparatively more sympathetic and less sympathetic audience reactions respectively, just in terms of the archetypes that tend to be popular within the superhero genre. 

The second half of his arc -wise, Dave like Patch is pretty much there to inspire with his death, which is pretty weak. 

In fairness, I’ll say it’s not as if there are straight relationships in UA thriving, however three scenes of like, 30 seconds covering a 10 month trip to Vietnam is almost purposefully lazy, especially when half of Dave’s scenes are these fetishistic death scenes. Like Patch, we get told about his personality and shown almost nothing not just of Dave, but also Klaus, the plot’s focal character, in this entire, life-altering year away. (Was Ben there? Did he try the briefcase at any point? Was he planning to stay in 1968? How was surviving a war zone when you can see the dead? Was he still on drugs the whole time? I feel like it’s implied, esp. since he and Dave are wasted in Saigon; but Ben says ‘Dave knew (you were better than that)’ which suggests the opposite.) Again, this is something that may be revisited in S1, which would be interesting (I like the theory that the Commission were involved in Dave’s death, what with the Handler’s mention of Vietnam.)   
Likewise, I’d love to see his interactions with his siblings, he and Diego were very sweet; and I'd like to see him and Vanya interact, as they both share a lot of similarities. 

**Five**

I probably have the least to say about, tbh. Aidan Gallagher’s an impressive performer, especially considering he’s half the age of the rest of the cast. (That Dolores goodbye scene, man!) Five’s plot necessarily isolates him from the others, as does his personality and the time he spent alone with no one else to rely on; which is a shame, as those interactions are essential for me in establishing a character to care about – we know Five cares about his family, but the pacing and structure of his arc mean what we generally see is him dismissing them. The Commission were interesting in small doses, but I think I’d have traded the Handler, Hazel, Cha Cha, and Agnes for more interaction between the Hargreeves and less individual subplots. 

Vanya 

As discussed in Alison’s post, Vanya’s power is already pretty trope-y: the woman who’s feelings will destroy us all! 

Then to add to that, we also get the medication ~*dulls your art*~ thing, ugh. At this point, it would be way more surprising to see a piece of media where there was an anti-depressant analogue (I get that these were not actually drugs and were specific to Vanya’s unique power, etc. but lbr, for the metaphor of the show, they’re anxiety meds) which didn’t have some kind of scene about how creativity and mental illness are eternal twinsies. With Klaus, it works, he’s on a variety of drugs that are harming him physically and are only a short-term solution; but adding in Vanya’s plot just seems like there was a statement there about similarities between using mental health meds and narcotics. 

Finally, we have a fantastic pilot with all this potential for Vanya’s interactions with her family and the dynamics there (antipathy mixed with concern from Diego, clumsy attempts at bonding from both sides with Alison, hints at backstory of a closeness with Five… We don’t see interaction with Klaus or Luther much, really, which is a shame, as Vanya parallels them both in different ways – Klaus obviously shares the overt scapegoating and abuse from Reginald, and like Vanya, self-medicates and struggles to utilise his power at all. And Luther, like Vanya, is socially isolated and still coming to terms with their childhood and Reginald’s feelings towards them in a way the others seem to have accepted) and so we…spend nearly the entire show with one of the most capable actors marooned outside of the rest of the cast and main arc in favour of a predictable gas-lighting storyline spanning over eight episodes. I did like the Leonard flashbacks and how he too was rejected by Reginald, but it’s soooo loooooong to get to there. Ellen Page here is like Robert Sheehan in the ‘Nam plot – they’re perfectly capable of carrying a lacking story alone, but they succeed despite the plot, not because of it.

**Overall….**

Never read the comic, don’t plan to. 

I feel like the pilot was the strongest, with the first half of the season notably stronger than the back end. I suspect that having gotten through the Vanya plot, the second series will have less separate plots and perhaps more balanced pacing. 

The world-building could have been stronger – Alison’s celebrity comes and goes as the plot demands, like, these kids were on magazine covers, related to a billionaire Olympics medallist. One disappeared ~*mysteriously*~, one died, one’s an astronaut, one’s an author and one’s a movie star?   
I’m thinking Diego, Vanya and Klaus would not be languishing in the obscurity of gym janitor/vigilante; Not First Chair and junkie, for starters.   
Not that any of them would be happier, in Klaus’ case he’d probably be even worse, if only because of the amount of people willing to give him free drugs or buy him drinks; but there’s not much sense of believability in the fame issue.) 

Biggest, number 1 fear is of the show in any way justifying Reginald. I feel like they sort of hinted at the idea that The Means Were Justified with the semi-sympathetic wash they gave Pogo, not to mention his flashback with his wife and how it’s his influence that inspires Klaus to master his powers; plus Alison’s ‘I’m grateful, otherwise we never would have met’ and Five’s ‘The old man was right (about his powers)’ and the suggestions that the apocalypse was in some way predestined (which also releases the others of their culpability in their own poor decisions in favour of placing all responsibility on Vanya, despite the fact that she’s clearly amenable to their approaches even while still playing.) 

**Misfits**

With regards to Misfits, swings and roundabouts, really. 

Misfits, I think, has the lead on group dynamics and friendships. Right away you got a sense of each individual and how they reacted with the others, with these very specific combinations.   
Whereas with Umbrella Academy, for a ten episode/hour series, there were these purposefully contrived obstructions to actually seeing the group as a whole so you’ll get literally zero interaction between some characters. 

Umbrella Academy definitely beats Misfits for emotional realism, however – past S1, there’s almost no continuity in Misfits from episode to episode, in terms of long-term impacts from events. All authority figures slowly retreat (the plot that there was a policeman investigating the deaths of the first two probation workers is dropped abruptly) and the sense of any consequences disappears; but also, so do reactions to things – compare Nathan’s death in S1, which occurs about ¾ of the way into the episode, with the last quarter being devoted specifically to how the group cope with the aftermath; to how by S2, Curtis’ girlfriend is shot one episode, and then never mentioned again; or how Alisha’s last episode has her side-lined in favour of Simon’s man pain. 

Misfits takes the crown on dialogue – this is Umbrella Academy’s weakest point, I think – there’s very little sense of individual character in much of the dialogue, and there’s some really exposition heavy, clunky lines. (‘You haven’t been this sober since you were a teenager. Ever since you started to block the ghosts out.’ ‘You’re addicted to the apocalypse!’). Misfits often used repetitious dialogue, but there was a rhythm for specific characters and an overall voice that I don’t think Umbrella Academy has really established for itself yet.

Umbrella Academy leads on being better for gender and homophobia (although it’s a near thing, considering there’s a decade in between the two) – you still get fridged women and buried gays, but not the undercurrent of malevolence towards women and queer people that Misfits adopted at times (you can definitely feel the difference that UA has a larger writing staff, let’s say.) 

Stuff they had in common: great soundtracks, weird attitudes to sex (Misfits almost fetishized it in itself, huge relationships and plots live and die over how much and how well couples fuck; whereas Umbrella Academy is oddly sexless.

With regards to Nathan and Klaus, there are clear similarities and differences, I think. The producer talked about being a fan of Misfits, so I’d see it as unavoidable (not to mention superhero stories are now so ubiquitous that storylines are only going to get more familiar) but the life stages and backgrounds of the characters are varied. 

The Umbrella Academy differ from most characters in terms of the sheer amount of trauma heaped upon them, superheroes often have tragic pasts or experience unhappy events (Misfits is a fairly comedic show, and the leads experienced death, sexual assault, intense violence, bullying, implied childhood abuse…) but they tend to develop or discover powers as formed personalities; whereas the Umbrella Academy have never known life without theirs, and were literally purchased into abuse. 

Where the similarities are, I think, perhaps in the performative nature of both characters and how they use this as self-protection, and internalise feelings. 

As mentioned, Misfits is a show which doesn’t refer often to past traumatic events unless it’s relevant for a present plot, but Nathan is a character who would be least likely to, regardless. I think a misreading of the character is often that he’s honest because he’s willing to discuss things that would embarrass others, when actually, he’s very secretive about feelings. 

There’s a similarity here between Klaus (who’s apparently open enough that his siblings know he enjoys being tied up, and who thinks an awkward moment can be broken by discussing waxing his ass; but hasn’t told these siblings that he can see their dead brother) and Nathan, who’s so repressed emotionally he can barely admit when he enjoys people’s company or that his parents are divorced. 

Both are also capable of shifting relatively swiftly in front of others (witness how Klaus can grin and wave in front of his brothers when an hour before he was weeping; and compare to Nathan going from miserably mourning his brother’s death to jumping on a bed as he and his friends break into a flat.) 

They also share a certain level of self-loathing. Klaus, like his siblings, has internalised his father’s viewpoint to an extent. When he’s told: ‘I don’t like you’, he agrees. 

Nathan, likewise, agrees to a point with his father’s negative assessment of him – when he attempts to help his estranged brother develop a relationship with their father, he assumes a level of blame for his dad abandoning him: ‘Some would say I wasn’t the easiest kid,’ and views predators his father’s neglect exposed him to as welcome because at least they’re willing to time with him. 

Both have a disregard for their own safety, leaving them homeless; and both seek attention constantly, whether it’s negative or positive. 

Both also seem to view sex as something they fear as an assault (Klaus mentions how in prison ‘fresh young piece(s) get passed around’, while Nathan often refers to child abuse and ‘gang rape’) but mainly transactional (Klaus refers to his longest relationship occurring because he needed ‘somewhere to sleep’, while Nathan’s references to sex tend to be about how either he or his partner lacked consent in some way. When he returns with cash for his new girlfriend in 2.7, her first guess is that he got it fellating a tourist), a particular typecasting for Sheehan, who’s played sex workers in several other projects.

I’d see differences other than the obvious being that Klaus is more comfortable testing gender norms, while Nathan is far more insecure and corrective of both his own and other’s behaviour if he feels it’s ‘gay’. Klaus is also more openly affable, perhaps because of his level of addiction – he can’t afford to test people in the way Nathan does, because their patience for his antics has long since lapsed.


End file.
